Don’t Ask/Tell? Don’t ALLOW.
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Quote of the Day: “Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.”
- Janet Long
I guess it’s time to weigh in on the don’t ask don’t tell situation. What I DON’T want to happen is to get into a huge back-and-forth discussion because that has been done to death over and over. I don’t think I could bring anything new to the table other than my opinion so here it is.
I support repealing DADT.
100%.
I think it was a stupid law that played the monkey hands over the mouth, ears, and eyes game.
With that said, I don’t support gays in the military.
Yes, I think they should repeal the DADT law but that is not to say that I think they should allow gays in the military. I think they should go back to expressly forbidding them to serve.
This is different than most of the arguments you hear because most people who argue against repealing the law want to repeal it and let the flood gates open. Mine is to repeal the law and close the gates altogether.
How have I formed this opinion? I submit to you my 22 years of active duty in the Marine Corps. On that level, I think I have the creds to at least weigh in.
Let me start with an experience I had over in Saudi Arabia and wait for the tie in at the end.
The Saudi Arabian Marine Corps is not what you would call awesome. In fact, after advising them for a year, I can say they are substandard as a fighting force. This is a result of many factors I will not go in to right now but one of them is their short history. They simply have not had a long time to develop into a viable fighting force.
If you ask any of them, they would probably think they were really good. In fact, their common, if not humorous, belief is this:
- If I have the weapons and equipment used by the United States Marine Corps, I am as good as the United States Marine Corps.
- If I have the training used by the United States Marine Corps, I am as good as the United States Marine Corps.
They truly believe that if they have these two factors, they are on equal footing as the United States Marine Corps.
Therefore, they buy our equipment (or similar types) and hire a few of us to go over there and teach them how to use it.
And they think this is enough.
It is not.
There is one ingredient they lack. And, ironically, it’s the most important ingredient that makes the United States Marine Corps the most effective fighting force on the planet.
It goes by many names: espirit, professionalism, verve, cockiness…
But it boils down to one thing: the fighting spirit imbued to every Marine from the moment they enter the service.
To those of you that served, you know what I’m talking about. To those that have not, it’s hard to precisely define but it is that mentality that we are the best at what we do and we will win any fight we get into. Period.
This is the ingredient that the Saudis lack and, in my opinion, will never attain. Therefore, I don’t see them ever becoming what they say they want to be: a true Marine Corps on par with the United States.
OK, now, with all of that said, let’s get back to gays serving in the military. As I’ve stated, the arguments have been horse-beaten over and over so I don’t want to debate this. Just take it for what it is: my opinion.
When you allow gays to serve, their very existence in a unit eats away at that special ingredient. The vitality and combat effectiveness of a unit is anchored in the relationships between the individual Marine of the unit, be that a squad, a platoon, or higher. If that relationship of trust, respect, and yes, even love for your brethren does not exist, the unit is weakened if not completely ineffective.
These units exist. There are weak units because of many factors. The leadership has failed to forge the unit and something has gone wrong with the dynamic and as a result, that unit creates a danger to itself and to the units around it. The weakness, borne out of anything from distrust to outright personality problems, translates into real danger on the battlefield.
If you allow gays into any unit, the very concept that makes that Marine unit good would be removed. You would introduce mistrust and that is a cancer that cannot be allowed to decimate a unit if you want it to perform to the standards that make it what it is: a fighting force to be reckoned with.
“But why should I care what a Marine does on his off time as long as he fights…”
That is assuming he is only a Marine during “working hours.” Guess what, a Marine’s working hours are 24 per day, every day. We are Marines not by trade but by belief system. We do not shed the uniform, put on earrings, or moonlight as scumbags. Or homosexuals. It’s simply counter to everything we believe in. Is that so hard to understand?
“This is the same argument as they used to try to keep black people out of the ranks.”
Big difference. Being black or any other race is not a choice or a behavioral factor. I would not question being in a communal shower or curled up in a foxhole with anyone from any other race but if that person was a homosexual, he would join a long list of other people I would have a problem with in similar situations.
How would America swallow the knowledge of throwing their daughter in a communal shower with a bunch of male Marines?
The unfortunate comparison above puts me and other heterosexual males in the role of the daughters because, think about it, the scenario describes victims who are attractive to a population.
So if we expressly forbid men (attracted to women) to shower with women, why should we be OK with men (attracted to men) to shower with men?
That is, of course, hypothetical because we all know what would happen. The gay man would be beat to shit and then you would have a legal nightmare which, predictably, would wipe out that unit.
Before long you would have the following exiting service:
1. The beat-to-shit gay man
2. The perpetrators
3. The Officer in charge
But there is a few other populations you would lose:
1. Marines who either resign or don’t reenlist since they don’t want to put up with being forced to accept serving with gays
2. Potential Marines who don’t enlist or apply for a commission for the same reason
And if you think these numbers would be small, you would be wrong again. Marines, more than any other service, depend most heavily on their reputation to recruit and retain. If you decimate that allure to “Be a Marine,” then you have gutted your best fighting force.
It comes down to a simple question: does America want a Marine Corps?
If the answer is “yes” (and it is), then you must allow an environment exist that is capable of creating and maintaining the kind of units it takes to have a good Marine Corps.
If you start tinkering with that proven formula, you will break it.
A Marine fights and wins. He does this with his fellow Marines who fight just as hard and these bonds are the strength that protect all and give the American public what they expect from a Marine Corps: checks in the winning column.
If you let gay people into that formula, the bonds will break down.
And you will not have a Marine Corps, or at least one that does what a Marine Corps is supposed to do.
So if you do this, do not call it a Marine Corps.
Because it will not be.
To show you that I have not lost my sense of humor while way up here on my soapbox, I did have to chuckle at this that I got from The Reluctant Optimist who noted the improvements if DADT is repealed:
The Army might finally get some uniforms that look good.
The Marines might finally get rid of those ridiculous onionskin PT short shorts for fear of fraternization.
The Air Force might look more macho.
The Navy… well, pretty much status quo there.
Free Advice for Today: “When you race your kids, let them win at the end.”
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
.jpg)
